


From the Sea to Meet the Evening

by voleuse



Category: Magic Mike (2012)
Genre: Gen, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 02:16:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voleuse/pseuds/voleuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Bodies, that have found nothing, let go of one another</em>.<br/>Joanna kept on moving.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From the Sea to Meet the Evening

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Joanne_c](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Joanne_c/gifts).



> Post-movie. Title and summary adapted from Rainer Maria Rilke's _Loneliness_.

Joanna wasn't going to follow them down to Miami, obviously, but she planned to enjoy the hell out of the boys' company while they were still in town. And so what if she ended up drinking mai tais in the back of the club? (She didn't like mai tais, but the newest bartender, Lanie, had pushed to make them the Friday night special. They weren't so bad.) It passed the time, and she liked comparing the hollering of bachelorette parties with the competitive yowling of ladies' nights. 

Plus, sometimes, Adam still stumbled when he tried to do something extra-complicated. She kept a tally in her notepad app--her favorite was still the accidental somersault into a penis-shaped birthday cake. 

After that set, he had slunk up next to her at the bar. Lanie lobbed a towel at his face, and he slouched onto a stool. 

Joanna saved her note and grinned at him.

"Shut up," Adam snapped from behind the towel, his voice muffled. 

When he emerged, Joanna snapped a picture of him. "I love Instagram," she mused.

"Bitch," he said. Lanie handed him a beer, and he handed it to Joanna. 

"It could have been your face mashed into a red velvet penis," she replied. 

He considered that. She handed him her mai tai. "I love you?"

"Fucking right you do." Joanna tipped her head back and smiled as he watched her drink.

*

She just couldn't remember Ken's wife's name. "God," she muttered. Her ears were still ringing--Ken's wife was a screamer, when she put her mind to it--and Ken was walking his fingers down her spine, singing the alphabet backwards.

"Right?" Ken murmured. "That was some good shit."

Joanna extricated her arm from under Ken's wife, shaking off a tangled scarf. "Pretty sweet, yeah." Ken scooted lower, ducking his head under Joanna's knee. She rose on her elbows. "Trying to score on the rebound?"

Ken looked up, his eyes focusing on her breasts, her shoulders, her throat, before settling on her face. "What?"

Joanna rolled her eyes and crunched forward, weaving her fingers into Ken's hair. He laughed, his grasp loose around her left ankle, and dipped his head.

"God," Joanna choked out. 

Ken's wife eased an arm around Joanna's shoulders. "It's why I married him," she said, grazing her teeth against Joanna's throat. 

Joanna bucked, her nails digging into Ken's wife's forearm. "Good call," she gasped. 

And Ken reached up and held his wife's hand.

*

Joanna preferred to skip over mornings entirely and start her day after lunch. She'd long ago learned to work through her thrice-weekly hangovers, but the idea of torturing herself with a six a.m. wake-up call for no other reason than to satisfy some antiquated paradigm--in _Tampa_ \--made her want to vomit.

So she charmed her committee chair into believing she had vague but important familial obligations every morning, and she brought coffee and crumb cake to the schedule deputy three times a semester. Some asshole in industrial/organizational program told everybody she'd slept her way into a research fellowship, but mostly people just assumed he was an I/O asshole, the end.

Joanna started her day with a jog down the beach, making obscene gestures at the guys that whistled at her (except for that one with roller blades and the Malamute, because he'd gone down on her at that party, once), and grabbing a half-gallon of orange juice and a bottle of vodka from the Publix closest to her apartment. She showered, ate a gigantic Cobb salad, light on the lettuce, and spent thirty-five minutes driving around campus looking for a decent parking space. 

Eileen was already camped out across two armchairs when Joanna strode into Mojo. She snagged two gossip magazines and a _Psychology Today_ after ordering her latte, and Eileen rolled her eyes as she rearranged her legs. 

"I hate everything about your life," Eileen pronounced. 

Joanna tossed _OK!_ into Eileen's lap. "You haven't had sex for two and a half months."

"How is that different from what you said?" Eileen asked. She pointed at _Psychology Today_. "You'll want to set that columnist douche on fire again."

"I use his columns to roll joints," Joanna said. "Got anything good?"

Eileen tugged her netbook out of her backpack and booted up, handing Joanna a spiral-bound notebook with her free hand. "Martinez is looking for another TA."

"For intro? Gross." Joanna flipped open the notebook. "This looks good."

"Grant-writing for dummies." Eileen clicked through an Excel spreadsheet, left-handed. "Never again. Did you rewrite those forms for IRB?"

"No," Joanna groaned. "I have to find another fucking club. This one was _perfect_."

"And you slept through the rosters," Eileen said. 

"And we'll call that the pilot study, bitch," Joanna retorted. 

Eileen flipped her off. "I/O asshole asked for your number again."

"I'm going to key his car," Joanna said. She pulled a manila folder from her purse. "Did you read that PDF I sent you?"

"I've been awake since dawn," Eileen replied.

"God." Joanna gulped from her too-hot latte. "You make me want to vomit."

*

The sunlight waned golden by the time Joanna sauntered into the restaurant. She thought about sitting at a table, but the dining area looked empty, a single server adjusting and re-adjusting the fake carnation centerpieces. Joanna waved off the host and found her way into the bar.

The floor was only half-sticky, recently mopped in anticipation of the night to come. She nodded to the bartender, who smiled as he polished the spots off a wine glass. "Just a vodka tonic, whenever," she requested. She dropped her purse onto a small, round table nearby, flipping open the appetizer menu as she leaned against the back of the chair.

"Whatever you want, beautiful." Dick slid into the seat across from her, and Joanna looked behind her as Adam walked up, balancing two beers and her vodka tonic. "First drink's on me."

Joanna took her drink, and Adam kissed her on the cheek. "You are weird and adorable," she said. "And twelve years old."

Dick grinned as the server walked up, and it took Joanna three minutes to get her to write down a house salad and two orders of potato skins. 

"That's on you, too," Joanna pointed out. 

Adam snorted, and Dick stretched his arms over his head. 

"Shut up," Joanna said, and she signaled the bartender for another round.


End file.
